How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[LongLeftFlank]

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Ok, so I guess it is time for another talk on this.  The main reason there has not been a lot of discussion on the progress of the war itself is because not a lot is happening - or wait, is it?  And being human means we simply cannot accept reality for what it is, we need to start reading meaning and implications at every shadow in the dark.

Nothing is happening because the UA has run out of steam.

Nothing is happening because the RA has rebuilt itself into a lurking monster that can freeze this conflict in place.

Nothing is happening because it is all a [insert boogie-man of you choice] - Belarusian Front re-opening is popular.

Or here is a crazy idea, maybe nothing is really happening because it is the middle of a wet muddy winter.  Or wait a minute, maybe something is happening - https://www.forbes.com/sites/katyasoldak/2023/01/23/monday-january-23-russias-war-on-ukraine-daily-news-and-information-from-ukraine/?sh=72a88a92ba69  but because of unrealistic expectations we think nothing is happening.  

In fact we have become so fixated on questionable criteria of success that the fact that the RA is bleeding out appears to be getting lost in the noise.  https://www.newsweek.com/nearly-5500-russians-killed-last-week-war-defense-ministry-1777316 (that is 1/3 of what they lost in Afghanistan in ten years).

Oh but we all know the mighty Russian bear can generate millions of troops - which it has not - and come crawling out of the snow to retake all of Ukraine and usher in a new era of Russian dominance. 

And then pundits - seriously who are these guys? Say things like "Ukraine can only make progress with a deliberate offensive."  Well no sh#t Sherlock, it is what they have been doing since last Sep.  In fact the only successful defence-only operation was arguably in Phase I when the RA over-reached and collapsed out of the North.  Every major UA success to date has been a period of heavy RA attrition/manipulation followed by deliberate offensive pressure - fast in Kharkiv, slow in Kherson - outcomes the same.

"Oh dear, oh dear, Russia is going to win the war."  Well Piglet, no Russia has already lost this one - we are only negotiating what that looks like here. (The_Capt's all war is negotiation has clearly fallen on deaf ears.) 

"But, but, Russia wins unless we take back every square inch of Ukraine in the next week."  Well, ok by that metric then I guess we have lost this one but that is a terrible metric.  "Russia wins if Ukrainians keep dying" - another bad metric because last I checked this is a war and people are going to die from it for decades - see UXOs and landmines.  "Russia wins if Russia is not a smoking collapsed ruin with Putin hanging upside down from a telephone pole" - ok, seriously?

The worst case right now is that the front does not move an inch.  The conflict is frozen in place, locked in Korean style.  The specter of Russia somehow turning those buckets of Chinese chips into a C4ISR enterprise that can achieve: information superiority; wage a SEAD campaign for the ages and somehow regain air superiority - and invent a CAS/AirLand doctrine while they are at it; then establish the operational pre-conditions they needed on 24 Feb - make Ukraine go dark - literally and information-wise, cripple transportation infra-structure, and paralyze political/military strategic decision making - is f*cking laughable.   I mean if the RA still has those rabbits in its hat I will be absolutely shocked and of course ask the obvious question - "what the hell were they waiting for to pull them out?"

So conflict frozen.  So What?  Russia has already failed on both its made up and real strategic objectives for this war.  The real ones are stuff like:

- Take full control of Ukraine, install puppet government and run the nation like Belarus.

- Shatter the western world through a display of Russian Imperial might and re-assert Russian hegemony.

- Render NATO irrelevant and neutered.  With no doubt a longer term campaign to push them out of the Baltics through subversive means.

- Simply wait for a few months before weak-kneed European resolve collapses and they all start to buy Russian gas again - renormalization, Russian supremacy in its neighborhood, western "rules-based-order" a burning wreck, and sit back and let the autocrat club rule the roost.

Ya so not only did none of that happen, in many instances the exact opposite happened.  So for all you students of history I think I am on pretty safe ground when I declare that this is what losing looks like.  If on the weigh scales of history Russia gets "blasted and shattered Donbas, complete with reconstruction bill", and "Cut off and highly vulnerable Crimea", and "Strategic land bridge to nowhere", I think we can bloody well live with it.  If we cannot and that is what breaks us, then we never deserved to be in charge in the first place.

Russia just burned down its own storefront.  It has isolated itself from it best customers.  Its reputation on the global stage is in shambles, re-normalization is a very far off dream.  It has been militarily crushed - I mean this is 1991 where Saddam drove the coalition into the sea type of thing - by all old metrics of warfare Ukraine should be in an occupied insurgency right now, the reality we are in should not have happened. Russian hard power credibility is a joke.  And it is extremely vulnerable to really weak negotiating conditions. 

Further NATO has not been this unified since the Cold War.  Western defence spending has been re-energized for a decade at least - I mean seriously Vlad, read the f#cking room, we were half-way to debilitating defence cuts in the post-pandemic economy but then you made your "genius" chess move.  Europe is actually agreeing with itself.   The US has finally found something they can agree on, mostly.  And most importantly, I think the West finally woke up from its "New World Order" hangover and realized that one has to actually keep fighting to stay on top.

And finally here is the thing....this entire affair is not over by a long shot.  We have not seen anything that suggests the UA has run out of gas.  We are pushing more and more offensive equipment at the UA, which suggests that they are lining up for another operational offensive.  The RA is still flopping around with leg-humping in the Donbas.  Spending thousands of lives for inches, just like they did last summer.  So before we declare this thing "over" why don't we just buckle in and show something that most people do not get in the least about warfare...steady patience.  Games and movies are terrible at teaching this because they are entertainment.  War is more often a slow and steady grinding business, until it is not.   

Again, you (and others here) keep trying to make this completely about Russia (and secondarily about Western support), while refusing to look closely at the capabilities of the third key actor here: the Ukrainians.... because, well, they've been plucky, and beyond that we can't really know or sumfink so shhh, best not to inquire.

1. Russia's inability to overrun Ukraine, or to mount strategic offensives (as opposed to Wagner's Verdun), is no longer the key question here.  Attacking these days is Hard, (viz. 2000 pages of discussion).

2. Russia isn't going to fade away or bleed out on its own on its current trajectory. It can't take much more of Ukraine, but if not shoved out of what it has, it will keep digging in, keep up positional warfare and  bombardments through 2023 while whining for a cease fire (in place).

3. By late 2023, Ukraine is 'Okrajina'. A dismal borderland, an armed camp having to man a hostile horseshoe shaped frontier of some 1000 miles, with some 15% of its 40M people exiles or under enemy occupation, another c.5% physically or mentally shattered, and another c.20% living within Russian tactical artillery range. No  rebuilding, few non war-related jobs, no investment, no clear way to plan for the future. Wholly dependent on Western aid,  vulnerable to corruption and factional gangsterism.

[FancyCat]

 

 

[dan/california]

2 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Again, you (and others here) keep trying to make this completely about Russia (and secondarily about Western support), while refusing to look closely at the capabilities of the third key actor here: the Ukrainians.... because, well, they've been plucky, and beyond that we can't really know or sumfink so shhh, best not to inquire.

1. Russia's inability to overrun Ukraine, or to mount strategic offensives (as opposed to Wagner's Verdun), is no longer the key question here.  Attacking these days is Hard, (viz. 2000 pages of discussion).

2. Russia isn't going to fade away or bleed out on its own on its current trajectory. It can't take much more of Ukraine, but if not shoved out of what it has, it will keep digging in, keep up positional warfare and  bombardments through 2023 while whining for a cease fire (in place).

3. By late 2023, Ukraine is 'Okrajina'. A dismal borderland, an armed camp having to man a hostile horseshoe shaped frontier of some 1000 miles, with some 15% of its 40M people exiles or under enemy occupation, another c.5% physically or mentally shattered, and another c.20% living within Russian tactical artillery range. No  rebuilding, few non war-related jobs, no investment, no clear way to plan for the future. Wholly dependent on Western aid,  vulnerable to corruption and factional gangsterism.

There is a fairly old expression about "that is why you play the game". None of KNOW which side will hit its breaking point first. All we can actually DO is send Ukraine as much support as possible and see how it plays out. As The_Capt likes to say, these things move very slowly, and then VERY quickly. I don't think the Russians can stand ~15,000 serious casualties a month, and massive economic pressure for very long. As you have eloquently stated Ukraine is not having an easy time of it either. The game stops when one side cracks. I said this a few pages ago but the possibly Chinese saying "may you live in interesting times" really is a curse.

[NamEndedAllen]

Tidying up a sense of the past few pages which are a redux of several other sequences in the thread.

1. Russia has already lost.

2. It cannot win.

3. it has insignificant offensive combat power.

4. Whatever technical and equipment replacements Russia may cobble together will only slow the draining away of its ability to wage war.

5. Ukraine grows stronger by the week as massive Western war fighting equipment pours in and more and more troops receive high level training by Western militaries.

6. Ukraine’s current ability to plan and wage successful defense and offensives is already much superior to Russia’s. Only vaguely obscured by the poor weather conditions.

7. Therefore Ukraine may not retake its own territory and should negotiate peace in exchange for all or much of Crimea and the Donbas. Because if Russia loses those Ukrainian Oblastsillegally seized by war, it will implode, collapse into chaos. The West cannot accept that outcome because it is bad. It will ensure that Ukraine negotiates and accepts loss of extensive territory in exchange for an agreement by both sides to end the war, not just for a cease fire.

1 through 6 have a lot of general agreement, with some minor variations. A few posts reasonably push back on 1 and 2.

7. Is far more controversial. Certainly it is one scenario. Many see other outcomes. The future is not written. Yet.

Edited January 31, 2023 by NamEndedAllen

[Kraft]

 

Edited January 31, 2023 by Kraft

[Beleg85]

https://www.reuters.com/world/us-readies-2-bln-plus-ukraine-aid-package-with-longer-range-weapons-sources-2023-01-31/

According to Reuters, GLSDB will be in next packadge. Along with Mraps and ammo.

[billbindc]

2 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

https://www.reuters.com/world/us-readies-2-bln-plus-ukraine-aid-package-with-longer-range-weapons-sources-2023-01-31/

According to Reuters, GLSDB will be in next packadge. Along with Mraps and ammo.

Yep. Precision out to 150km. DefMon3’s map on this is pretty terrifying for the RA. 

 

Edited January 31, 2023 by billbindc

[Harmon Rabb]

Ukraine Situation Report: M2 Bradleys Have Begun Their Voyage To The Battlefield (The WarZone)

[Maciej Zwolinski]

58 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

3. By late 2023, Ukraine is 'Okrajina'. A dismal borderland, an armed camp having to man a hostile horseshoe shaped frontier of some 1000 miles, with some 15% of its 40M people exiles or under enemy occupation, another c.5% physically or mentally shattered, and another c.20% living within Russian tactical artillery range. No  rebuilding, few non war-related jobs, no investment, no clear way to plan for the future. Wholly dependent on Western aid,  vulnerable to corruption and factional gangsterism.

This.

And after months of that chaos without a perspective of change, the Ukrainians themselves agree to peace talks on the basis of territorial concessions. The Russians do not budge on the Crimean corridor and Donbas, and the Ukraine finally agrees to lose access to the Sea of Azov and the Donbas industrial areas. Of course there is no hope of NATO or EU access because everybody expects a new invasion as soon as Russia rebuilds its armies. At best Ukraine becomes a much larger Kosovo, at worst gives up the Western direction at all and finlandizes towards Russia.

Not a win.

[The_Capt]

43 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

the Ukrainians.... because, well, they've been plucky, and beyond that we can't really know or sumfink so shhh, best not to inquire.

Well I guess that is because until we see some indication in a shift in Ukrainian military capability, or political will, there is no reason to think or deduce that they are somehow in worse shape than they were 3 months ago.  It isn't "shhh dont inquire" it is "well what has fundamentally changed?"

The UA conducted a double operational offensive last fall that took back roughly half the area the RA held.  It was hard grinding at Kherson but not army breaking.  Since then the UA appears to have dug in and happily let the RA break itself in the Donbas again.  This time we are not seeing the massive artillery campaigns we saw last year, instead the RA is throwing what appears to be human wave assaults while the UA is giving ground very slowly.  Everyone seems to think the RA may try to make a major push sometime this winter/spring, I for one am waiting to see what becomes of that.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-30-2023

Beyond that the Ukraine is clearly in the fight as it continues to force generate, promote a pretty convincing narrative and the taboos on offensive weapons (yes, even those damned Leo2s) appears to be fading. 

Casualties - who really knows the estimates vary wildly

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War

However, even the highest numbers for each side are nowhere near a demographic attrition threshold for either side.  So we are down to social willpower and here the Ukrainians clearly have the upper advantage as this war is directly existential and non-discretionary for them - the only party in this conflict to which those critical strategic factors exist.

So not sure what the fuss is about here to be honest.  I am a little disappointed that there looks like there will be no UA Winter offensive, but apparently the weather has not been cooperating and conditions have not been met in other ways. 

Ok, there it is.  If you have evidence of any significant degradation of the UA or some signs of political resolve starting to fail, post away.   The Ukrainian political level has not signaled they are ready to blink and the Ukrainian people appear pretty much committed.  Russia hasn't blinked yet either, or at least we have not seen it.  We know Putin has not mobilized "millions" and that based on troop density the 300k they mobilized last fall may stabilize the line in places but is not going to really fundamentally change the calculus.

I guess beyond the fact that war is very much hell and that it is not over yet, I am not sure what the hyperventilation is all about.

[The_Capt]

22 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

This.

And after months of that chaos without a perspective of change, the Ukrainians themselves agree to peace talks on the basis of territorial concessions. The Russians do not budge on the Crimean corridor and Donbas, and the Ukraine finally agrees to lose access to the Sea of Azov and the Donbas industrial areas. Of course there is no hope of NATO or EU access because everybody expects a new invasion as soon as Russia rebuilds its armies. At best Ukraine becomes a much larger Kosovo, at worst gives up the Western direction at all and finlandizes towards Russia.

Not a win.

Wow, dark.  I mean sure, technically could happen.  I mean the West would have to entirely abandon Ukraine in order for them to be pulled back into Russian orbit at this point.  And if that happens, well we may as well all start learning Mandrin because we are doomed for the next real fight.

The Donbas was not an "industrial heartland": https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10663-021-09521-w  In fact Russia walked away from the actual industrial centers of Ukraine around Kyiv.

Ukraine doesn't enter NATO and EU, well ok, not a great idea on our part but not a deal breaker.  Nor does this preclude bilateral agreements, which is what has gotten them to this point anyway.  Nor does this preclude western investment or reconstruction, particularly in the center and west of Ukraine.  Lord knows we would never pour trillions into a nation still in a state of conflict - The_Capt says sarcastically eyeing Iraq and Afghanistan, and unlike those two gong shows Ukraine is far more internally cohesive and actually bordered by NATO nations.

Of course heading into Western elections in '24, the big one being US, having Ukraine burning, abandoned and drifting towards Russia after spending billions is not a really good thing.

So sure, this darkest timeline is out there but lets call it the "natural 1" and realize that a whole lot has to go wrong before we get there.  Did you guys think war was without risk?  That we are in one we can actually lose?  Maybe that is the issue because all the rest were "over there" and of course we couldn't lose.  

Of course we can lose.  You may have noticed that we are about one bad day away from a nuclear exchange between great powers.  I mean it would have to be a really bad and unlucky day but that damned midnight clock isn't joking. https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/

But just because we can lose does not mean we will.  Particularly if we hold it together and stop jumping at every setback like it was the end of days.

 

Edited January 31, 2023 by The_Capt

[dan/california]

15 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

I am a little disappointed that there looks like there will be no UA Winter offensive, but apparently the weather has not been cooperating and conditions have not been met in other ways. 

Forecast temperature for Luhansk for the next 48 hours are basically -1C to +1C, that is not exactly the kind of hard freeze that lets you drive an AFV around a cornfield with confidence.

[billbindc]

4 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Of course we can lose.  You may have noticed that we are about one bad day away from a nuclear exchange between great powers.  I mean it would have to be a really bad and unlucky day but that damned midnight clock isn't joking. https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/

For the record, the Doomsday Clock was several minutes farther from midnight while Able Archer was putting us one slight miss step from Armageddon in 1983. It's made by scientists but it ain't science. 

[Maciej Zwolinski]

5 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

So sure, this darkest timeline is out there but lets call it the "natural 1" and realize that a whole lot has to go wrong before we get there.

Sure, the war is not lost nor even heading towards the loss so far. "We are not dead yet"  - to quote both our and Ukrainian national anthems.  However, in order to win the Ukraine will probably have to show that they are capable of doing something they have not done until now: break through a strongly defended front and exploit. Ukrainian offensive successes to this moment were: 1) attacks against awkwardly deployed enemy (first phase of the war); 2) attacks against a denuded frontline (Balalkleia); 3) attacks against enemy with constrained supply lines (Kherson). Fair play to the Ukrainian command for being able to find those vulnerabilities, but after withdrawal from Kherson there do not seem to be any more of them, and there will have to be a frontal attack and breach somewhere.

Unless the Ukrainians use the Russian offensive to take them out of defensive posture and destroy enough of them in the open to once again thin out the defenses. Perhaps Zaluzhny wants to try a different answer to the question "Warum wollen wir in diesem Jahr überhaupt im Osten angreifen" and prepare another "backhand blow". That would be interesting.

 

[Kinophile]

3 hours ago, NamEndedAllen said:

Thanks for your note. I appreciate it and your experience and service. Although we are veering off topic, Presidential Powers are relevant for Ukraine especially over the two years under USA divided government To clarify the formal nature of Presidential Executive Orders, here is the outline of their nature and authority for those who may not be familiar with the specifics of EOs. This isn’t politics! It is civics. While not legislation, they are binding on the government. Congress cannot easily remove them - by passing legislation. They are indeed powerful instruments of policy. Here is an excerpt, fuller details below:

“Executive orders are not legislation; they require no approval from Congress, and Congress cannot simply overturn them. Congress may pass legislation that might make it difficult, or even impossible, to carry out the order, such as removing funding. Only a sitting U.S. President may overturn an existing executive order by issuing another executive order to that effect”
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_education/publications/teaching-legal-docs/what-is-an-executive-order-/

“An executive order is a signed, written, and published directive from the President of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. They are numbered consecutively, so executive orders may be referenced by their assigned number, or their topic. Other presidential documents are sometimes similar to executive orders in their format, formality, and issue, but have different purposes. Proclamations, which are also signed and numbered consecutively, communicate information on holidays, commemorations, federal observances, and trade. Administrative orders—e.g. memos, notices, letters, messages—are not numbered, but are still signed, and are used to manage administrative matters of the federal government. All three types of presidential documents—executive orders, proclamations, and certain administrative orders—are published in the Federal Register, the daily journal of the federal government that is published to inform the public about federal regulations and actions. They are also catalogued by the National Archives as official documents produced by the federal government. Both executive orders and proclamations have the force of law, much like regulations issued by federal agencies, so they are codified under Title 3 of the Code of Federal Regulations, which is the formal collection of all of the rules and regulations issued by the executive branch and other federal agencies.

Executive orders are not legislation; they require no approval from Congress, and Congress cannot simply overturn them. Congress may pass legislation that might make it difficult, or even impossible, to carry out the order, such as removing funding. Only a sitting U.S. President may overturn an existing executive order by issuing another executive order to that effect”

 

Info dumps of US legislative process... Maybe a link next time,  with the bolded part quoted out? 

For some reason for me your copy paste comes out as oversized text... 

[The_Capt]

15 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

Unless the Ukrainians use the Russian offensive to take them out of defensive posture and destroy enough of them in the open to once again thin out the defenses.

So the thing about corrosive warfare is that is takes time…one has to let the corrosion set in.  Further, one has to degrade an opponents entire military system at a faster rate than it can recover.  By all accounts the UA is succeeding on both of these components; however, I suspect they are going to continue to bleed the RA and let it burn itself out until they can find or manipulate a break-in battle.

Remember we calculated that average troop density is about 200 troops on the RA side.  They have thrown minefields up but we have seen little evidence of how many or how much in depth.  And the RA logistics system has to be straining right now, it was before this winter.  So holding back, peppering with long range precision fires and hammering RA attacks does not seem like a bad strategy while they continue to force generate and integrate in the backfield.

Now what that break in battle will look like is really what we should be talking about.  My guess is that it will start with a concerted fires campaign on RA ISR to try and establish some level of surprise.

[Kinophile]

4 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

 

Now what that break in battle will look like is really what we should be talking about.  My guess is that it will start with a concerted fires campaign on RA ISR to try and establish some level of surprise.

Now we're back on track!

I'm curious,  what sort of current fires could achieve this? HIMARS is effective but RUS has adapted. When you say concerted what are you envisioning? Finally... Where? 

I'm personally all for cutting the land corridor east of Melitopol, then lacerating the Crimea logistics network west of it. 

But I'm not sure existing UKR force can do that yet. 

[The_Capt]

7 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Now we're back on track!

I'm curious,  what sort of current fires could achieve this? HIMARS is effective but RUS has adapted. When you say concerted what are you envisioning? Finally... Where? 

I'm personally all for cutting the land corridor east of Melitopol, then lacerating the Crimea logistics network west of it. 

But I'm not sure existing UKR force can do that yet. 

Well I have read about the RA “adaptions” and they appear to consist of tying one’s logistics into knots.  HIMARs and this new GLSDB round are the deep strike systems the UA will likely rely on.  This would see strikes in C4ISR instead of logistics being prioritized.  So Command Posts, comms infrastructure, ISR support and infrastructure.  This will look different than ammo dumps and logistics nodes, more precision is needed and a smaller window of opportunity because once they do get wind of a targeting shift they will stat moving their C4ISR.  And then there are the targets in Russia itself.  I suspect that the gloves will come off on C4ISR in Russia proper.  These are a smaller target set and make less of a bang so escalation is less likely.

Where.  My guess is a ann eastern feint to pull RA back towards the East, and then a main thrust down the middle towards Melitopol.  Once they can cut that bridge and hold it, the big old bridge linking the Crimea to Russia is in range.  Cut that and the troops in Crimea start to look pretty cut off and Kherson-like.  Crimea is a much bigger prize and will create a lot more leverage.  Work that while containing Donbas back into a box.  To my mind this whole thing is Phase IV of this war.

[DesertFox]

2 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

https://www.reuters.com/world/us-readies-2-bln-plus-ukraine-aid-package-with-longer-range-weapons-sources-2023-01-31/

According to Reuters, GLSDB will be in next packadge. Along with Mraps and ammo.

Great news. Phillips OBrian retweeted the Warmonitor map showing the consequences. I hope it is true:

 

 

[NamEndedAllen]

1 hour ago, Kinophile said:

For some reason for me your copy paste comes out as oversized text... 

Yes! Agreed, apologies. I’ll work on that. My tablet doesn’t display the “size” drop-down tab -  or the quote option either. Don’t know why, but might be related to limitation of window size. I’ll figure out a way to get those,or write post elsewhere and copy it back here. 

[LongLeftFlank]

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Well I guess that is because until we see some indication in a shift in Ukrainian military capability, or political will, there is no reason to think or deduce that they are somehow in worse shape than they were 3 months ago.  It isn't "shhh dont inquire" it is "well what has fundamentally changed?"

The UA conducted a double operational offensive last fall that took back roughly half the area the RA held.  It was hard grinding at Kherson but not army breaking.  Since then the UA appears to have dug in and happily let the RA break itself in the Donbas again....

Beyond that the Ukraine is clearly in the fight as it continues to force generate....

However, even the highest numbers for each side are nowhere near a demographic attrition threshold for either side.  So we are down to social willpower and here the Ukrainians clearly have the upper advantage....

I guess beyond the fact that war is very much hell and that it is not over yet, I am not sure what the hyperventilation is all about.

There's no hyperventilation here, mate.

Know your enemy and know yourself, and in a hundred battles you will never be in peril.

Notice there's two sides to that aphorism, and swapping Western for Ukrainian agency is the kind of paternalistic thinking that has been at the root of the previous Western failures.

@Maciej Zwolinski made the critical point above; full marks to Zaluzhny and UA command for Ukraine's operational successes to date! but the conditions that made those possible cannot be relied upon going forward.

'Well then, they'll think of something else* cuz Zaluzhny is Supah Geeeenius' is kind of the mirror image of the 'Cuz Russia Sux' fallacy, which is a trap you yourself have rightly warned of.  So let's not echo chamber here, nobody is rushing for the smelling salts but there is a limit to Ukrainian capability (Will is only a part of it) that is worth probing.

* someone just suggested a 'backhand blow' near Torske, and I very much hope they're right!

...As to Ukraine being a far better strategic investment for the West than Iraq and A'stan, sure enough (I'm attempting to take that bet myself ).

But OTOH, ask the Iraqi Kurds what courage, hardiness, loyalty and social cohersion did for them in the end, being surrounded by powerful enemies their US sponsors feared to offend too much.  Or the Free Syria Army, the Marsh Arabs, Hmong and Montagnards before them....

Anyhoo, this is a far more interesting line discussion IMHO than still more Tanx n Krautz blahblahblah.  Carry on schooling us (or ignore us if we're tiresome), but we will feel free to push back.

[billbindc]

1 minute ago, LongLeftFlank said:

But OTOH, ask the Iraqi Kurds what courage, hardiness, loyalty and social cohersion did for them in the end, being surrounded by powerful enemies their US sponsors feared to offend too much.  Or the Free Syria Army, the Marsh Arabs, Hmong and Montagnards before them....

None of those poor folks were in a war where vital US interests were at stake. Nor is Ukraine surrounded by powerful enemies...and no, Transnistria doesn't count. And I don't know about you but sending HIMARs, M-1's and the like is a far cry from being afraid of causing offense to me. 

I understand the desire to avoid over confidence but lets at least attempt to stick with apples to apples comparisons.

[LongLeftFlank]

4 minutes ago, billbindc said:

None of those poor folks were in a war where vital US interests were at stake. Nor is Ukraine surrounded by powerful enemies...and no, Transnistria doesn't count. And I don't know about you but sending HIMARs, M-1's and the like is a far cry from being afraid of causing offense to me. 

I understand the desire to avoid over confidence but lets at least attempt to stick with apples to apples comparisons.

....You clearly weren't alive during Vietnam, but your point is correct: analogies are always flawed, and easy to peck apart.  But cut us some slack here, we are gamers and history geeks.

[billbindc]

3 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

....You clearly weren't alive during Vietnam, but your point is correct: analogies are always flawed, and easy to peck apart.  But cut us some slack here, we are gamers and history geeks.

Actually I was and I've spent a fair amount of time there...including a bit up in the mountains around the Hmong. No intention to be harsh but I feel like the point is one that is often missed: the Russian invasion of Ukraine is *not* like other conflicts post-WWII and the Ukrainians are not in the position of the folks you mention above because Putin managed to both challenge the vital interests of NATO and the West without giving himself any easy path to back down. That fact changes the analysis rather profoundly and I think is the essential flaw in the arguments made by several folks above. 

[LongLeftFlank]

27 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Actually I was and I've spent a fair amount of time there...including a bit up in the mountains around the Hmong. No intention to be harsh but I feel like the point is one that is often missed: the Russian invasion of Ukraine is *not* like other conflicts post-WWII and the Ukrainians are not in the position of the folks you mention above because Putin managed to both challenge the vital interests of NATO and the West without giving himself any easy path to back down. That fact changes the analysis rather profoundly and I think is the essential flaw in the arguments made by several folks above. 

Vital US interests, until they aren't.

https://www.duffelblog.com/p/u-s-tells-kurds-its-just-going-out-for-a-pack-of-cigarettes

But we're kind of going sideways here, so maybe let's agree to disagree on analogies.

....Speaking of Vietnam, it's occurred to me that the mechanics for one of the few hex and counter wargames I still play, Nick Karp's brilliant Vietnam 1965-1975, might be well suited for representing the current conflict, with the essential combats at battalion level.  Thinking less of the Pursuit or Pacification factors than the use of reinforcement points and commitment levels. 

Perhaps even a riff on the SVN command 'Effectiveness' chart, applied initially to the Ukes and then to the Russians.

But ah well, if I only had the time.

Edited February 1, 2023 by LongLeftFlank